Man has looked up into the sky with wonder ever since we were first cognizant.  Our place in the universe has been fodder for stories as well as a device force.  For example, ancient Greeks identified constellations and built a mythology explaining the natural phenomena.   Because of this, the science of the universe continues to be the stuff of dreams.

The intersection of cosmology, art, and man’s philosophy is a fascinating subject.  Even without a deep understanding of physics, an image of a celestial object is beautiful and mesmerizing.  Understanding that nothing, not even light, can escape a black hole pickles our imagination, spawning science-fiction novels and films.  The big bang theory, which describes the origins of the universe, has led to debate in some religious circles.  The artist I study this term, Katie Paterson, uses art as a medium to help people relate to and understand scientific concepts.

We think of the night-sky as static.  And while the stars and moon may change positions, we see the content of the skies fixed.  But what we don’t see are the thousands of dead stars, also know as white dwarfs.  These dead stars are the remnants of past stars, such as our sun.  Even though they are the same size as Earth, white dwarfs have the same mass as the sun.  Katie Paterson, along with the aide of astronomers, created a map of all 27,000 known white dwarfs titled All the Dead Stars.  Each illuminated spot is the location of a white dwarf star.  Images, such as this one created by Paterson, help us imagine what else occupies the universe by amplifying their presence in a map.

Not all things in the universe can be shown though.  The image below might seem perplexing at first.  It appears to be just a black square.  But, this is actually the furthest point in the observable universe we have capture, 13.2 billion light years away.  And within in this image is something extremely abundant, dark matter.  Dark matter is still mysterious to the scientists who study it even though they theorize that dark matter makes up 27% of the universe and dark energy makes up 67%.  Which leaves only 5% of the universe as stuff that we can measure with our instruments.  It goes to show how there is something in nothing.

So how do the stars, the universe, and dark energy impact you?  Admittedly, the cosmos, and the matter that exists within them, doesn’t impact your everyday life.  But, I believe the artistic representation of the universe serves an important role.  Just try to imagine how long 13.2 billion light years is or how big our galaxy is to an object your familiar with.  It’s hard right?  This was the springboard for my art project.  I wanted to create an object that captured the importance of perspective when viewing celestial bodies.  When you’re looking up into the night sky you aren’t just seeing stars.  Some of those faintly illuminated “stars” are actually galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away.  When you realize this, it begins to give you a new perspective on your own place in this vast plane.